coondoggie writes: "The Federal Trade Commission today said it settled a case that involved seven rent-to-own PC firms and a software vendor which worked together to spy on consumers using the rented computers. The software captured screenshots of confidential and personal information, logged computer keystrokes, and in some cases took webcam pictures of people in their homes, all without owner notice or consent."Link to Original Source

puddingebola writes: From the article, "After Einstein's death, a pathologist named Thomas Harvey performed an autopsy, removing the scientist's brain, hoping that future researchers could discover the secrets behind his genius. However, as the tissue was preserved before modern imagingtechnology, it may be difficult to figure out exactly where in Einstein's brain each slide originated. The new app organises the slides into general brain regions, however, it does not map them with precision to an anatomical model."Link to Original Source

Dear NRL, I heard you are able to track falling drops of liquid. I would find it very useful if you could track falling birdshit and alert me to move my car, close my mouth, don a hat, etc. Yours Sincerely, Taxpayer.

No matter my easygoing, optimistic, humorous internal state -- I have a disability whereby I look cranky and/or crazy. I get social crapola by the ton. People treat me like crap. I AM easygoing optimistic and humorous. Will I live long and prosper...or die young?? This study is irritating.

Clogoddess writes: Flowering plants (in other words, food) often flowers based on the day length. Research news! Scientists find that plants with day length awareness detect BLUE light. Atmospheric scattering is greatest in the blue/violet end of the spectrum(*) making plants' choice of blue light the most sensitive color choice to detect seasonal change. Smart vegetables? I for one munch cheerfully on our tasty lettuce overlords!

An anonymous reader writes: Legendary sci-fi writer Marc Zicree (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Sliders) and special effects wizard Doug Drexler (Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica) just became the fastest funded film project on Kickstarter. They're currently working together to bring back sci-fi! They're using crowd-funding website kickstarter to directly communicate with and enlist the support of fans for their latest project Space Command. Maybe with direct communication with the fans, sci-fi fans can rest easy and not have to worry about their favorite shows being cancelled like FireFly. If you want to check out the website at spacecommandmovie.com.Link to Original Source

sethopia writes: "In 2010, three people had the crazy idea to start a school where the teachers teach whatever they want and the students pay for classes with whatever teachers need—cutlery, art, advice—but never with money. Trade Schools have been popping up around the world and are now active in 15 cities and 10 countries, with almost no prodding from its founders. Caroline Woolard, one of the founders, discusses the challenges and opportunities of adapting their idea to an international audience and making the Trade School software—based on Python and Django—great."Link to Original Source

mrnick writes: "Eric Simons, 19 years old, was working at incubator, Imagine K2, in Silicon Valley and when his grant money ran out he moved into the office. He slept on a couch, took showers and washed clothes in the office gym, and ate for free in the cafeteria all the while working on his new start-up. He was able to get away with this for two months before being discovered by security guard."Link to Original Source

An anonymous reader writes: A fortnight ago the Bitcoin financial website Bitcoinica was hacked and the hacker stole $87,000 worth of Bitcoins. At the time the owner promised that all users would have their Bitcoins and US dollars returned in full, but one of the site developers has just confirmed that they have no database backups and are having difficulty figuring out what everyone's account balance should actually be. A failure of epic proportions for a site holding such large amounts of money.Link to Original Source

RADIO: CBS News reported two weeks ago that tax laws changes (US) recently created onerous reporting burdens, to the tune of thousands of dollars in paperwork fees. I can't find a link to that news article, but NYTimes (ref below) also reports,

“The administrative costs of being an American and living outside the U.S. have gone up dramatically,” said Marnin Michaels, a tax lawyer with Baker & McKenzie in Zurich. (and...) After Congress sharply raised taxes this year for many Americans living abroad, some international tax lawyers say they detect rising demand from citizens to renounce ties with the United States, the only developed country that taxes it citizens while they live overseas. Americans abroad are also taxed in the countries where they live.“

The number of people trolling loudly about taxes owed by people who use United States' elite infrastructure--please be properly grateful to citizens living abroad and not "using up" any of that 1337 infrastructure!

Primarily they missed any sort of social or emotional processing, such as face recognition, emotional recognition, metaphor comprehension, the kinds of intelligence known to reside in the right hemisphere.

(My snarky private thought was, wow, a new way of ignoring areas of intelligence that don't correspond to standardized tests.)

My informed opinion: --- the researchers were presenting, primarily, a MAPPING SYSTEM ("An integrative architecture for general intelligence mapping.") There are many many areas of intelligence that were not represented within this limited group, composed of verbal deficit injuries. There's no big news here, there's just a promising system for conducting future research on intelligence.